Guest Post: Simply Darlene, “Working at Home is a Job, Too!”

This month we have had great posts from writing friends far and wide. Go back and catch up on all of them, as they reflect on “What I Learned From My First Job.” Today, Simply Darlene tells us about her first job — helping out at home. If you don’t know Darlene, you should. She takes photos, writes and reflects at Simply Darlene with the tagline, “Just a simple country girl trying to make it God’s big ole world.” Care to join in the project? Drop me a note here.

Working with Mom
I had my first official job, the kind with a time card, scheduled work hours, and a very nearly ugly uniform at age fourteen, mainly because that was the legal driving and working age in Idaho during the late 1980’s. And since I had myself a car, I needed myself a job. But prior to my teenage employment endeavors, I worked at home. Ya see, kid sitters were a luxury that my single-parent mom could not afford so mile-long chore lists (plus peanut butter-n-honey sandwiches and daily episodes of “Little House on the Prairie”) went a long way to teach me and my younger sister the values of work.

Bring in firewood. Mop the kitchen floor. Clean the basement bathroom toilet. Scrub the master bathroom tub. Vacuum the downstairs bedrooms. Dust the dining room. Gather the eggs. Feed the dog. Peel some potatoes. And do your homework.

And our summertime list looked similar, but included additional outdoor things. Rake the lawn. Snap the beans. Pick the peas. Pull weeds in the first 2 rows. Set out the sun tea. Clean the camper. Pack the camper for the weekend. Water the lawn. And watch only one soap opera.

We were country folk so for my mom’s lunch break she rushed home from her office job to check on us kids. With the drive out she only had fifteen minutes to spare before she had to leave again; she came inside, made sure we were in one piece, used the bathroom, wolfed down some lunch, and drove back to town.

On hot days especially, my little sis and I powered through our chores so that we would be free to hitch a ride and spend the rest of the afternoon back in town at the city beach. We frolicked about whilst my mom served her remaining four hours behind a typewriter and telephone. We girls loved this reward of freedom and fun with our town friends. The city beach was scattered with lifeguards and we always hung out in the same spot, near the snack hut. Those were mom’s rules. We slathered on sunscreen, swam out to the log barrier, lay facedown on towels, and feigned anger when boys stirred up hot sand as they traipsed by. Of course we had to be back at mom’s office no later than five o’clock or we had to hoof it home.

But some days, even after we did our listed chores, plus some extra ones for bribery, err, good measure, my mom simply said, “No, not today girls.” We generally sulked off, but only for a minute because there was nothin’ like a bonus chore list and a “Little House on the Prairie” ban to cure us of puckered lips and bad attitudes. On those sweltering days we improvised with a blue plastic kiddy pool, lawn chairs, and free snacks outta the fridge. Not so bad.

I don’t recall ever thinking that my mom was a bad mom or that we girls missed out on any after school or summertime magical mothering dust, but that changed during a college Educational Psychology class. Boy-howdy, I got me some learnin’ that day. According to the lady professor, latchkey kids (it was a brand-spanking new term for me) could and would contribute nothing more to society than an increase in the number of hardcore criminal jailbird punks. After all, what could such a Neanderthal-esque, despicable, parentless environment create?

Huh? My teeth rattled loud and with a hard thunk! my lower jaw hit the ginormous text book on my lap. I turned to the gal next to me, an athlete I knew because I was the student athletic trainer assigned to the men’s and women’s track team that year, and said, “Wow. I just learned something new about myself today. I better call my sister when I get home and see if she’s been tossed in the clink yet. Maybe I’ll see her there because it sounds like I’m surely on my way.”

“Uh, yeah, me too. Save me a spot,” said my trackster friend, “but I’m going to call my dad and ask him what he thinks about that lady calling his parenting skills despicable.”

“I’m not gonna ask my mom that ‘cause she’ll come straight through the phone and whoop my butt,” I said.

For the rest of the hour we ignored the professor and carried on our own latchkey kid conversation in the lecture hall shadows – we discussed our supposedly horrid, yet very similar, upbringings. We each had chore lists, lived in the country, came home to parentless houses, and supervised younger siblings; but, we also earned good grades, excelled in high school sports, were the first generation in our families to attend a university, and were involved in collegiate athletic endeavors of our choosing. On top of that, we were putting ourselves through college and also hoped to be future teachers, not just to kids in a brick and mortar building, but also to our own flesh and blood variety.

We agreed that the lady psych professor was a bit off her nut on the whole latchkey kid scene and that we would raise our own kids much like our parents had raised us, chore lists and all.

My first unofficial job taught me lots o’ stuff, besides the fact that mom’s the boss:

1. Hard work keeps a person fit.
2. Whining doesn’t help one single bit.
3. Weeds are always gonna be a part of life.
4. Working hands are usually too busy to find trouble.
5. We don’t always get what we want, even when we give it our all.
6. As soon as a person gets their work done, they generally are free to have fun.
7. And last, but not least, my mom’s chore lists didn’t turn me (or my sister for that matter) into some crazed, striped-pajama wearin’ jailbird; rather, they turned me into a determined, strong-willed, get ‘er done sorta daughter.

Do you wanna know something? I didn’t get paid a single red cent for a day of my at-home, unofficial first job, but I wouldn’t trade a bit of it for any wage you could offer me today.

Thanks mom.